Here's what to expect of a typical practice from a day in the life of a Manna rower...

Rowers arrive 15 minutes before practice at the Hermosa Beach Community Center. Before entering the workout area, staff members welcome and check-in your child. Rowers socialize together and build trust. At the same time, they mentally prepare themselves for the workout. We teach mental activities to help with this. We call them Manna Mental Sharpening Tools.

Our sessions start with breath training and mindfulness. This mentally prepares them for the challenges ahead. We then run through some yoga movements, conduct a proper warm-up, and get to work. We emphasize technique. We work on some fun drills and activities on and off the erg (rowing machine).

Engaging games, challenges, and goal setting lead to a fun and growth-centric environment. Improvement, personal growth, and motivation are infectious here!

During the workout, we communicate mindset framing with your rower. We promote the Manna morals and ethos with them. By the end of class, they feel exerted but at the same time feel light. After going through a proper cool down, they walk out of practice with a smile, a sweat, and an invigorated spirit. They’ll feel prepared for any challenge ahead of them.

Classes prepare them for regattas and future competitions. We host races on a monthly basis and have one at the finale of the program. For the hard work, these regattas have prizes!

We can't wait to me you and your new rower. To see our programs, please visit this PAGE. Together we G[ROW]!

Founder, Jay Dee Morgan (left), traveled to San Francisco to attend the Wim Hof (right) workshop on October 23rd, 2016.

The Wim Hof Innerfire workshop took place on a mild, cloudy day on Treasure Island in San Francisco. Roughly 200 people from all walks of life traveled to meet for the one day workshop. Ice baths, breathing, and a deep dive into what is known as the Wim Hof Method was the agenda for the event.

Let's take a step back and answer a few questions:

Who is Wim Hof?

Wim Hof, better known as the "Ice Man", is a Dutch man that can perform some rather "superhuman" feats.

Wim is internationally renowned for his countless ice endeavors that range from being up to his neck in a cylinder filled with ice cubes for over 90 minutes, swimming long distances under polar ice, running a marathon barefoot to climbing the Everest in nothing more than a pair of shorts. It gained him worldwide fame and his nickname: The Iceman. Wim has shown what the human body is capable of once you find the flow within your physical and mental state. Right now he especially sees his new challenge in passing on his method to others to give everyone the opportunity to reach out and do more than what they thought they were capable of. Through the right training and exercises, you can strengthen your inner nature and prevent disease.

Vice Media told Wim's story of his past, present and the future of what he hopes to accomplish. You can see the documentary HERE

Wim, from the beginning, has welcomed and encouraged scientific scrutiny. This is why we at Manna got interested in his claims in the first place. Radboud University (Netherlands) conducted extensive research on Wim's claim that he could influence his autonomic nervous system (immune system, breathing, most homeostatic functions) when it came to illness. The researchers injected the group (control and a group trained by Wim) with an endotoxin - similar to the flu - the control group got sick, whereas Wim's group, trained in the Wim Hof Method was able to fight off the endotoxin.

Why is Manna interested in Wim Hof's method?

Early on in the life of Manna, I [Jay Dee] became interested in meditation and began ramping up my training in rowing and fitness. I began being more mindful of my breath while training. I'd always heard about connection to your breath from years of Yoga - it never really sank in what that meant. Meditation was great and showing very good results, but I would get bored and fell asleep sometimes.

The breath was a way to meditate, be a little bit more active than just "ceasing to think". Finding that disconnect from my mind and thoughts was much more attainable - faster and easier. It is a very effective way to find that midpoint between consciousness and unconsciousness. The method also has great benefits to our physiological performance during exercise. We've been experimenting with the method for the past year and are very pleased with the results! We've implemented many of the main themes from WHM (breathing & mindfulness) into our classes and can't wait to share them with you at our studio classes, at your office space, or your next fitness and mindfulness event with us!

Why did Manna attend the workshop?

Simply put, we wanted to see the "Ice Man" in the flesh and see what he was all about. We are happy to report that he is every bit as charismatic as we have seen in the media covering him. We were able to network with some of the finest in the world. The Chicago Cubs had a representative from their strength and conditioning team. Tony Robbins had one of his representatives in attendance. Lawyers, doctors, researchers, biologists, physiologists, tech entrepreneurs - everyone present was seeking to find that 1% improvement in lifestyle, performance, and well-being. We got to gift Wim a Manna shirt - he was stoked!

"Hugging it out" after explaining Wim's influence on the Manna program.

Hi again. My, don’t you look lovely today! I wanted to share with you all the backstory of how this whole thing came to be. I encourage you all to keep pursuing those things you love - be it golf, apparel, fitness, your family, jiu jitsu, travel, etc. Hope you enjoy...

Manna was started because of Jay Dee and Thomas’ love of rowing, fitness, and the ability to work for themselves and create something to share with many people.

Jay Dee and Thomas both have a rowing background. They rowed with each other at UC San Diego and remained friends even after an injury took Thomas away from the sport. Strap in your seatbelt, it's a bumpy founding story ride:

Jay Dee, moved to New York City from San Diego in the summer of 2012. As a collegiate oarsman, his time in college was spent training at the highest level at his sport, training his mind in the classroom and possessing elite fitness.

As he transitioned into the working “adult” world, his training, fitness, and focus on health went to the wayside to concentrate on making it in finance in the "Big Apple".

With only $5,000.00 to his name and a hope of making it with the financial hotshots of New York City, Jay Dee got a huge wakeup call from the realities of having no network, being in one of the world’s most expensive and unforgiving cities, and a lack of physical and mental exertion.

He found himself experiencing 8 long months of unemployment, a deep depression, poor health, and poor mental stamina.

Jay Dee eventually did end up as a junior portfolio manager with Wells Fargo and even worked with VC funded start ups in Los Angeles. But it was during the darkest time where the inception of Manna developed.

There is a need for a community to help people who need self discipline through rowing and meditation training.

In the past year, Jay Dee and Thomas Chang, former UC San Diego rower, martial artist of 15 years, and close friend of Jay Dee, have been working on ways to improve mental concentration, stamina, and spiritual health.

They’ve been learning from Dr. Eric Goodman from Foundation Training, Wim Hof (holder of multiple world records), and meditation teachers to improve grit.

During this time, they’ve spent thousand of hours and dollars to develop a clear program that helps people integrate these obscure techniques and methods to track measurable improvement.

The goal is to build a community of like-minded people who are interested in building their personal grit through a multi-disciplinary mental and physical program.

On a personal level, Jay Dee and Thomas are both very entrepreneurial - seeing value in the ability to work for oneself and provide value to people through a means that was created by them.

At some time in 2015, Jay Dee shared an idea about a business plan he had been tinkering over in his head with Thomas.

The idea was to have a mobile trailer that would wheel around rowing machines providing classes on the machine for people out of doors and at revolving locations.

Thomas immediately resonated with the idea as he had a similar idea but for a more general gym-like experience but also mobile and out of doors.

From here, Jay Dee and Thomas began talking more seriously about building a fitness-focused business together. In January 2016, Jay Dee asked Thomas to partner with him on the Manna Rowing venture. They’ve been building, iterating, rowing, and working together since then.

Our main goal is to help people build mental fortitude, grit, physical fitness, and longevity to live an optimal life. It’s not about us, and we are all in this together.

I [Jay Dee] have become very passionate about mental health and how exercise and mindfulness can play a huge positive impact.

Mental illness runs in my family. Schizophrenia, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder - these are all things I've seen in my family and have even experienced some of it myself.

When I moved to NYC [from 2012-2014] I went through a tough time mentally, physically, financially, and emotionally.

Gilbert Chesterton said, "one sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak". In this valley was where I saw my proverbial peak.

Without knowing it, I was healing myself by getting back on the rowing machine. You see, once I moved and ran out of cash my motivation to workout withered away. I became sluggish - mentally and physically.

It negatively transcended my relationship to my then girlfriend, my energy towards others [I was trying to network a lot to find a job], and my relationship with myself.

Gratefully, through getting back in better shape, building confidence back up, and working my tail off, things turned out for the best and I was able to receive my "MBA in Life" as I like to put it.

To tie my personal anecdote and what we are doing at Manna to a recent study I read, researchers at Rutgers University have found that focused-attention meditation [this can look like the breath-work we do] in combination with aerobic activity [we achieve this with rowing and our strength and bodyweight training], and having a large element of effortful learning [we are all learning how to row :)] can "maximally increase the integration of networks involved with cognitive control and learning to those necessary for autonomic nervous system regulation."

Depression is living in the past, whereas anxiety is living in the future.

With these three elements i) focused mental presence, ii) physical activity, and iii) intent and effortful learning you can help stave off mental illness, be in great physical shape, look HAWT, create NEW neurons in the hippocampus, and regulate your autonomic nervous system.

THIS IS HUGE.

One of our crew, Breia, has been showing me some incredibly powerful breathing and focus techniques, I hope to share more with you all as I learn more and have Breia share.

Betsy and Jon, friends from our pals at Crossfit Beach Fitness, have both shared with me that they have rarely missed a day of physical exertion in their 50 or so trips around the sun.

And they are BOTH HAWT :)

Make these things a priority and your body and mind will thank you.

Here's a snippet from the study that I thought synthesized things nicely:

"Antidepressants are not the only depression-related therapies known to increase neurogenesis. Most notably, aerobic exercise can greatly increase the number of cells that are produced in the hippocampus. Animals given the opportunity to run on a daily basis can produce nearly twice as many new cells as sedentary controls.7, 8, 9 Importantly, however, these new neurons are not necessarily permanent. Even under ‘healthy’ conditions, many of these new cells can die within several weeks of being born, often before differentiating into mature neurons.10 Nevertheless, many of the newly born neurons can be rescued from death by new learning experiences and they may even be involved in learning itself.11, 12"

I believe the last element that this study out of Rutgers is missing is "community". A sense of belonging. In my 12 years of crew I've never felt like I wasn't with a family. I'm starting to feel that with our crew and can't wait to see us all grow together!

Sunday morning class at the Ultimate Training Center in Signal Hill, home of Manna Rowing.

Jay Dee here.

I'm the co founder of Manna Rowing.

Here's a little story of what's been going on as of late.

I met a man named Paul Hoffman recently. He's a friend of my father's. Paul has been helping plant churches in California for the last 35 years. In his spare time, he loves USC football.

Paul never thought he would become a writer, but he found that he loved writing about things he loved. Namely, football. It started slowly, he'd write up some notes on a practice and post it to the 'weareusc' board that is ran by ESPN.

People really liked his stuff. They felt like they were there.

Paul kept writing and people kept reading. Eventually a publisher reached out to him, "Paul, how would you like to write for ESPN.... full-time, covering USC football?"

Paul, who is in his mid to late 60's, politely declined (he doesn't want to have to work for anyone, that would take the fun out of it).

He did reply back with, "you know, I'd be happy to write a few pieces every now and again".

So, now Paul writes for ESPN and Fox Sports on a freelance basis. Pretty cool, right?

Why do I bring up Paul? When I first met Paul, Paul asked me, "you're the rower right?"

I nodded.

He said, "I saw on Jeopardy that rowing was the first inter-collegiate sport between Harvard and Yale and now I'm intrigued". We talked a lot about rowing, and I showed him a lot of rowing videos, and then we talked about the recent book, "The Boys in the Boat".

I bought Paul the book. Two days later it arrived and he devoured it that day. He's since read it three times over. I got an email the next day, "I read the book, I loved it. I want to row and I want to write a story on rowing, would you help me?"

Here we are now, mocking up an article he's going to write for ESPN. He is hoping to do a series of articles on preparation and practice and how important they are to playing well.

We hope it'll get picked up in lieu of the Olympic Games and the Boys in the Boat movie releasing. It would really help bring exposure to our company!

That's a cool story and all and would be great for Manna, but here's why I'm really interested in Paul...

I want to help him through rowing. Paul has told me, "when I was your age I was 6'1" and 185lb, I could lift a car!"

Now, Paul has some health issues, he's overweight, and he has a lot of issues due to a poor diet that leads to lots of inflammation.

He knows he's got work to do, and I know I can help him.

This is a great reminder to us all to keep moving - do whatever movements you love. Eat right, eat things that aren't packaged and processed but come straight from the ground.

The beautiful thing about rowing is the longevity of the movement.

It's natural.

It's been a human movement for millennia. You can do it until you're 95. That's what worries me about some sports and recent fitness trends.

We haven't seen the sustainability of it on our bodies, and we already know we can't play football when we are 95.

I can't wait to see Paul's transformation, and I can't wait to get featured on ESPN!

I want to get Paul's rowing story out there. Rowing's the best thing out there that not enough people are doing.

I'm calling on any of your media contacts, sports/fitness/wellness/nutrition/lifestyle blog owners, etc. It would be greatly appreciated!